April 8, 1999 | Read Time: 1 minute
Nonprofit Boards: What to Do and How to Do It
By John E. Tropman and Elmer J. Tropman
This book outlines the responsibilities of a non-profit organization’s board of directors, explains how to establish a board, and provides guidance on how to conduct board meetings.
The goal is to eliminate the notion that board members are people who “take minutes and waste hours,” write the authors.
John Tropman is a professor of human-services management and organizational behavior at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. His father, Elmer, who died before the book’s completion, was the retired executive director of the Health and Welfare Planning Association of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County.
The Tropmans begin by outlining what they consider to be the basic duties of a board of directors, such as establishing policy and hiring a chief executive.
The two sections that follow explain how to organize, develop, and evaluate a board of directors, and how to set up rules to help insure that little time is wasted in board meetings. For example, the “rule of agenda integrity” dictates that board members discuss only what appears on a meeting’s agenda.
An appendix written by Tom A. Croxton, a lawyer, examines liability and risk management. And a handful of cartoons from The New Yorker magazine pokes gentle fun at board service.
Publisher: Child Welfare League of America, c/o PMDS, 9050 Junction Drive, P.O. Box 2019, Annapolis Junction, Md. 20701-2019; (301) 617-7825 or (800) 407-6273; fax (301) 206-9789; e-mail cwla@pmds.com; World-Wide Web http://www.cwla.org; 247 pages; $22.95; I.S.B.N. 0-87868-694-0.
